Nathan Rubbelke, a student at Saint Louis University, reports on a new syndrome appearing on college campuses: Ferguson Fatigue.

After the grand jury decision that police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for the shooting death of Michael Brown, protests choked with angry college students erupted on campuses across America.

Yet on that same night, a university just 10 miles outside Ferguson was calm and quiet. A peaceful, 30-minute prayer rally at Saint Louis University drew about 40 people, but other than that, the campus was eerily serene.

This despite Saint Louis University administrators emailing protest tips to the campus community ahead of the decision, and the Revolutionary Communist Party doling out pamphlets near campus that aimed to incite a riot among students after the decision became public.

While it is somewhat ironic that the nearest major university to Ferguson was a place of calm and quiet while others had raucous demonstrations, in interviews with The College Fix this week, several students offered ideas as to why: Ferguson fatigue.

“We are so close to what is going on,” freshman Zach Heinricher said. “We hear about it every day, and we see it. … It got old.”

Saint Louis University has spent this semester caught in the eye of Ferguson’s storm. Having been inundated with the issue for months, students are burnt out. Last week, no protests took place. This Monday, a 35 person “die-in” occurred. Otherwise, most SLU students have gone about their school week as usual.

“(Fatigue) is a natural response to something so big,” freshman Dinesh Jaswal said.

Some suggest part of the fatigue can be attributed to that fact that the debate has deadlocked on campus.

“People keep saying the same things over and over again,” Jaswal said.

Heinricher said opinions were pretty strong, few were in the middle. With that, minds were made up.

…The fatigue has come in different forms for different students. Darren Wilson supporter Kyle Gettemeier expressed frustration with constantly explaining himself to others.

“I’m fatigued in the sense that I’m tired of dumb people,” the freshman told The Fix. “I feel like I carry on conversations with people who don’t really understand. They think they know what they are talking about, but a lot of time they don’t.”


 
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